Sometimes, the shopping trip can only be salvaged with the promise of a milkshake before you leave.
Most times, it would have been better to weather the storm and go straight home.
Babies just don't 'get' the straw. They suck with their tiny, tiny sucking muscles, and when the milk doesn't appear in their mouths immediately, they use the only trick they know for getting more drink quicker: tip the cup.
They tip it higher and higher until milk is spilling out the small gaps between the straw and the plastic lid. The mother then urges them to hold the cup upright and suck harder through the straw.
But babies don't like this. They scream and pull the cup away from the mothers, so they can keep on tipping it higher, oblivious to the milk dripping all over their clothes, the stroller and the floor.
Mothers then groan and wish that the milkshake hadn't come with a straw in the first place. With imaginary light bulbs over their heads, they take the lid and straw off so the babies can sip straight from the cup.
Babies don't like this either. The lid and the straw are essential parts of the novelty of having a milkshake at the shops. They scream louder and in their desperation to snatch the lids and straws back, they drop them on the germy floor of the shopping centre. And babies don't understand about germs, so they continue unabated to grab the germy stuff and won't stop screaming until the dirty lid and straw are back on their cup.
And the mother has no face-saving option but to let it all happen. The baby drinks from a germy cup and drips cold milk all over their clothes, and the mother sits there with napkins in her hands, shaking her head and vowing never to do this again.
Well I don't know, maybe that doesn't happen to you.
16 October 2008
Babies Don't "Get" Straws
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10 comments:
Oh, you poor thing. I remember a trip out to lunch with you and SmJ when he was just walking. I seem to remember a Vanilla Milkshake Disaster that day, too. I'm so sorry.
Occasionally just occasionally, it is a little depressing to think how often parenting is about silly little battles like this. I'm a stick the germy lid back on kind of parent for the most part.
Why does this always happen this way? You think that its going to change but it never does. *sigh* I guess we just need to buy some really good stain remover.
Babies? I have done this myself!
Thankfully my youngun has outgrown that, unfortunately she is just 6 years away from the teens (and already has some lovely teen traits)
Yeah, I'll let you know when they stop tipping the cup to try to get more out. It's later than age nine. Hello.
There is that magical moment, though, expecially with the thickshake, when they suck the straw so hard that their little cheeks practically touch inside their mouths and they go slightly crosseyed with the effort.
Makes the following mess worthwhile to see that.
Oh yeah, Our four year old Aaron still does that - even though he now knows how to work it just fine. He does this on the ancient but still good leather sofa-no matter what. take it away you say? Move him off the sofa? Sometimes, but that's another thing.
And then there's the bubble blowing into the cup. Always in front of strangers or others you don't want to think your kid is an uncontrolable whatever-a-saur.(flintstones Bam-Bam comes to mind)
OH yeah, parenthood. Gotta love it. Really.
Re your Title - I am guilty of once killing a mouse with a claw hammer(he was getting in a package of MY frozen pork chops) had to throw out the chops-Doh!
Oh my daughter likes to take off the lid and stick her hands in the cup, then spill it.
I know all about milkshake disasters!
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